So, I finally watched this for the first time. I gotta say that I liked it. What was all that dissension from critics all about? Upon one viewing, it seemed to be a pretty solid screenplay with great dialogue and fully realized characters. Am I missing something? What did you guys think?

2-1B

03-17-2002, 02:54 AM

I liked it :) I enjoy Diesel's films (especially Boiler Room) to begin with, so I expected to like his role.

I found myself wondering why they would go to help that guy who was trying to rip off the trucker at the end . . . but I like that because they didn't make it quite so predictable. I usually like to have something to contemplate while watching a movie :D

Fulit

03-17-2002, 08:40 AM

Every once in a while a movie comes out that inspires imitation from teenagers on a massive scale. I have never seen so many "street racers" (wannabe teenagers) as I did after this movie. Why are kids so bloody stupid?

Rollo Tomassi

03-17-2002, 10:45 AM

While I think both Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are excellent actors (Walker just needs to find a good role/director) I thought the premise of this film was silly and the whole plot and execution of the story was weak and uninspired. It was a generic cop/action film that focused on the cars too much and did not tread any original ground. I watched it once and enjoyed it for the most part(thanks to the charismatic Diesel and the delicious Jordana Brewster..YUMMY!), but I have no desire to watch it again or buy the DVD (the true test of a movies "goodness.")

stillakid

03-17-2002, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by Caesar
I liked it :)
I found myself wondering why they would go to help that guy who was trying to rip off the trucker at the end . . . but I like that because they didn't make it quite so predictable. I usually like to have something to contemplate while watching a movie :D

The cop went to stop the "gang" because he ended up caring about them..."going native" as his supervisor accused him of doing in an earlier scene. Saving the schmuck who was stuck hanging on the truck was a way to "prove" his loyalty and friendship to Diesel's character. He didn't want to see Diesel or his friends get killed or locked up, so he figured that if he could stop them, he and the girl could convince them all to knock it off.

The only thing that I didn't get in the movie was at the very end when Diesel decides to race across the tracks. I'm still not sure what the point of that was. Was he expecting to commit suicide? Did he think that he would get across the tracks but the cop wouldn't, thus escaping? Where was he heading in such a hurry anyway? Before that little sequence, I was assuming that he was headed over to the motorcycle gangs HQ to inflict some damage in revenge, but it didn't play out that way.

By the way, if you didn't hang out until the end of the credits, there is a final shot at the very end of Diesel in Baja basically to show us that he got away or something.

SithDroid

03-17-2002, 02:53 PM

Originally posted by Rollo Tomassi
I thought the premise of this film was silly and the whole plot and execution of the story was weak and uninspired. It was a generic cop/action film that focused on the cars too much and did not tread any original ground. I watched it once and enjoyed it for the most part(thanks to the charismatic Diesel and the delicious Jordana Brewster..YUMMY!), but I have no desire to watch it again or buy the DVD (the true test of a movies "goodness.")

I agree. I saw it against my will and it was an ok picture, but one that I would never watch again or buy on DVD.

2-1B

03-17-2002, 03:03 PM

Originally posted by stillakid
The cop went to stop the "gang" because he ended up caring about them..."going native" as his supervisor accused him of doing in an earlier scene. Saving the schmuck who was stuck hanging on the truck was a way to "prove" his loyalty and friendship to Diesel's character. He didn't want to see Diesel or his friends get killed or locked up, so he figured that if he could stop them, he and the girl could convince them all to knock it off.

That's exactly what I mean :) I thought the guy who was stuck on the truck was a jackass and I didn't care if he survived or not. So part of me just wanted Walker's character to leave it alone . . . but I liked the fact that he stayed in the gray area and showed some compassion for the sleaze.

Rollo, I like your criteria concerning DVDs and a movie's value. I feel the same way about some movies, and I immediately can't wait for the DVD. In this case, I liked the movie but not enough to buy it. :)

stillakid

03-17-2002, 04:11 PM

Originally posted by Caesar

Rollo, I like your criteria concerning DVDs and a movie's value. I feel the same way about some movies, and I immediately can't wait for the DVD. In this case, I liked the movie but not enough to buy it. :)

The DVD question is a whole other topic, but is becoming a "problem" in and of itself. For instance, I heard Danny DeVito say yesterday that he left some of his favorite stuff out of Death To Smoochy due to studio pressure to "dilute" the black comedy of the script. He shot it all anyway and intends to release it with the DVD.

SO, the question for moviegoers becomes, do you go drop 8 bucks to see it on a big screen, knowing that the entire intended story isn't going to be shown to you, or do you just wait for the DVD? Or do you do both?

If you judge the film (poorly) based purely on the big-screen version, it may be an unfair conclusion due to scenes cut for studio or time considerations, so seeing the DVD version might actually answer some of those nagging questions that made you hate it the movie the first time.

Thoughts?

2-1B

03-17-2002, 04:24 PM

Good points stillakid. Regarding deleted scenes: I love seeing them on DVDs, but only if it's stuff the director cut due to time constraints, story flow, stuff like that. I've seen directors on their DVDs lament a cut because they loved the scene but had to do it "for the sake of the film." I appreciate that position.

This DeVito story is news to me, and based on what you said I think it's deplorable. No, I don't want to see a movie that is not as good as the director could have made it (of course I exempt poor decisions and honest mistakes from this viewpoint). I mean that a director owes it to the audience to make the film to the best of his or her honest abilities. Intentionally omitting stuff just because one knows it will end up on the DVD is a slippery slope :(

stillakid

03-17-2002, 04:32 PM

Originally posted by Caesar
Intentionally omitting stuff just because one knows it will end up on the DVD is a slippery slope :(

I think that you understood what I said, but just to be sure and that I don't mislead anyone, the original screenplay for Death To Smoochy is fairly dark. WB wanted to maintain that feel, which is why they went to DeVito to helm it, however, the studio wanted to tone it down for the mass audience so they put pressure on him to leave some of the good stuff out. I don't know what the studio's position is on putting deleted scenes back in for DVD, but based on precedent, studios seem to encourage it. That seems to be a rather silly and contradictory opinion for them to have, but I suppose they think that DVD is still a specialty market for film-buffs who want to see the more shocking stuff and they edit a "safe" version for mass-audience release.

2-1B

03-17-2002, 04:57 PM

Yeah, I'm sure some directors don't have much weight to put up against a studio, but DeVito seems like he would carry some more clout. Plus, if they went to him to direct it, they should have much less of an advantage in toning it down. I'd like to think he would have bumped heads for awhile and then realized that the stuff could at least be put on the disc. It's pretty wimpy if he used the DVD possibility as an immediate reason to go along with their demands. :)

stillakid

03-17-2002, 08:49 PM

Originally posted by Caesar
Yeah, I'm sure some directors don't have much weight to put up against a studio, but DeVito seems like he would carry some more clout. Plus, if they went to him to direct it, they should have much less of an advantage in toning it down. I'd like to think he would have bumped heads for awhile and then realized that the stuff could at least be put on the disc. It's pretty wimpy if he used the DVD possibility as an immediate reason to go along with their demands. :)

No, I don't think it went down that way. I wasn't there, but I got the impression that he would much rather have left the footage in the theatrical release.

In a related story, I finished going through some of the supplemental DVD stuff on The Fast and the Furious. There is a special "featurette" where we see the director cutting footage out in order to get the PG-13 rating that the studio wanted. That's life in the big city. In this instance, the director didn't feel so strongly about the "R" cut that he felt the need to put out that version, but you can see how other factors can, and sometimes should, take priority over artistic desire. TF and the F needed to be PG-13 to get that segment of the audience into the theater, so toning it down was not only necessary, but advantageous, lest the intended audience be restricted from seeing it in the first place.

SWAFMAN

03-17-2002, 08:58 PM

I thought Fast & the Furious was more or less a "formula" film. Fast cars, explosions, crashes, a 'hottie' or two (depending on your tastes in femmes), and a good guy/bad guy dynamic (even though the line gets blurred). Judging it as a formula film, I'd say they nailed it pretty darn well. I downloaded it for free off the net in perfect DVD quality, along with 'Gone in 60 Seconds." Talk about an intravenous check-your-brain-at-the-door testoster-onanza double-feature.

As far as Walker's character saving the jerkwad who got stuck to the truck, I never really thought he was doing the guy any big favor. Remember that the guy is life-flighted away not only for medical attention, but also, presumably, to prison! So if you think of it in that context, then Walker's cop character does end up getting the last laugh on the other guy.

I am not at all saying the flick is any landmark work of film making, but I'm not such a film snob that I can't appreciate the fact that it never pretended to be anything more than it was - and it delivered exactly what it promised. Nowadays, that fact alone earns Fast & the Furious my appreciation.

stillakid

03-17-2002, 11:04 PM

I think that I'll end up buying this one. I've always been into movies that kick up the adrenaline, especially with cars. From American Graffiti to Speed, along with awesome chase sequences in movies like Ronin, To Live and Die in LA, and The French Connection. I was looking forward to seeing Gone in 60 Seconds, a movie with a built in reason for great chase scenes, but it never realized it's full potential.

SirSteve

03-18-2002, 12:23 AM

I thought the sound was very cool. Some of the visuals were choppy (during the first race) and the end blew big time but it's a great movie to show off your sound system and watch some cool cars!

stillakid

03-18-2002, 01:30 AM

Originally posted by SirSteve
I thought the sound was very cool. Some of the visuals were choppy (during the first race) and the end blew big time but it's a great movie to show off your sound system and watch some cool cars!

If you have the DVD or rent it in the future, be sure to check out the Visual Effects Montage, or whatever they call it. As well as being supercool on it's own, it highlights many of the fx that it took to pull that race off. Very cool. :cool: Also pretty nifty is the extra that shows you the storyboards along with the cut scenes.

Eternal Padawan

09-04-2002, 10:30 AM

Saw this on cable last night. After watching the Cohen/Diesel debacle xXx, this one was downright agreeable. Still not going to buy it though. I can't stand being forcefed plot points like I'm a kindergartner watching Sesame Street.

Jordana Brewster was still tasty though!

ROLLO!

187-Maul

09-04-2002, 01:55 PM

I saw the movie at first in the cinema (with a very loud but awesome sound quality), saw it once from a bootlegged version and bought it as a "future birthday present" recently on DVD so yeah, I like the movie:)
sure, the story isn't all that good but what do you expect from a 15 year old boy who likes fast cars and hip-hop (soundtrack full of it and rapper ja rule having a role in it:) ) ?

TylerD

09-07-2002, 02:36 AM

I thought it was a great movie!

darthvyn

09-11-2002, 01:18 PM

i really don't dig the whole "tuner" craze, and i'm kinda annoyed that the only domestic car (and the only car with any real power)in the entire movie gets trashed.

the acting was horrible, the plot was all but unneccessary, but the races were pretty cool, and i dig car talk... even though they had guys talking about turbo AND nitrous on 4 cyl. engines - it's like, why even bother with a cooling system, that engine's going to give you maybe 5,000 miles of NORMAL driving, much less insane high-end shifting, wheel chirping maniacal driving...

meh.

2-1B

02-01-2009, 04:30 PM

Now the 4th movie is coming out and Vin Diesel is back..

Fast & Furious is the name of this one...yes, they changed "and" to "&" and dropped the 2 "the"s to form the title.

This is officially sillier than the 4th title of the Rambo franchise copying the title of the 2nd Rambo film.

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious

LTBasker

02-01-2009, 07:15 PM

I like the first one for the most part, but the second one was incredibly disappointing. And I didn't even try to watch the third one, the trailer revealed enough stupidity to keep me away from it. The trailer for the new one is pretty decent, even though I'll probably wait for it to hit PPV. The only part of the trailer I really didn't like was the end with the tumbling oil rig, that's just too ridiculous in so many ways.

Mad Slanted Powers

02-01-2009, 10:50 PM

Now the 4th movie is coming out and Vin Diesel is back..

Fast & Furious is the name of this one...yes, they changed "and" to "&" and dropped the 2 "the"s to form the title.

This is officially sillier than the 4th title of the Rambo franchise copying the title of the 2nd Rambo film.

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & FuriousEventually we'll have one called Faster and Furiouser.

I haven't seen any of them. It just doesn't interest me. After this movie Fox had this series called Fastlane that seemed to be an attempt to cash in on the popularity of such movies. When they cancelled Firefly, they moved this show into its slot. A few years later I had started watching G4TV a fair amount, but then they moved the shows I watched to a time I couldn't watch them, and the shows that were on when I could watch were Cops, The Man Show, and...Fastlane.

sith_killer_99

02-01-2009, 10:59 PM

Now the 4th movie is coming out and Vin Diesel is back..

Fast & Furious is the name of this one...yes, they changed "and" to "&" and dropped the 2 "the"s to form the title.

This is officially sillier than the 4th title of the Rambo franchise copying the title of the 2nd Rambo film.

The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast & Furious

I think they are trying to distance themselves from those "other" FNF films. Sort of a back to the original kind of thing.

Darth Jax

02-01-2009, 11:15 PM

was that a grand national he's driving at the end of the trailer???

Slicker

02-02-2009, 12:28 AM

I actually enjoy all 3 films. They go in order of how I like 'em though. The first one was really good and the second slightly worse and the third slighly more worser.

2-1B

02-02-2009, 07:35 PM

Then you're in luck Slick, cuz this one is titled closest to the original title...so I think that guarantees a minimal of 2nd best in the series. ;)